


Moved by Shadows

by motleystitches (furius)



Series: They Will Have Time (to put down a welcome mat) [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, jabba flirting, moving slowly but surely, rebel intelligence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9261674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: Jyn wakes up in Yavin after Scarif, believing herself the only survivor of Rogue One, but as Jyn chases down rumors of the Empire's plans, she starts uncovering secrets of the Rebel Alliance.





	1. Chapter 1

Jyn dreams she’s lying in a real room on a real bed. She speaks to the medical droids about how thirsty she is, whether the bacta is scarring too quickly for mobility, and other inconsequential things. When they are all gone, the room is half in shadow, the lines in the ceiling remained. The air is stale and suffocating. She wants to open a window.

Jyn blinks. She’s awake. She sits up, slowly, and suppresses a shout of surprise as she twists and sees a white figure beside her bed.

“Jyn Erso, ” the woman in white says, “I’m Mon Mothma, leader of the Alliance. I’m glad to see you awake.”

Jyn looks around her. She’s alone in the room with Mon Mothma where the leader of the Alliance has been waiting for her to wake up since-

“Scarif,“ she manages. Her throat is dry. “What happened?”

“The plans for the Death Star were successfully transmitted before Scarif was destroyed. An Imperial ship picked you up while evacuating. We captured that imperial ship and found you.”

“What about the others?” Jyn asks. Her head’s clear, but the tight clench in her chest isn’t going away. There’s not enough air.

Mon Mothma shakes her head gently. “You’re the only survivor we found. I wanted to be the one to tell you. The Alliance is grateful for everything. You may have saved us all.” Her face is calm, her voice was as smooth as glass while the tension inside Jyn shudders and threatens to break.

She says nothing. She holds on. She always have. No more tears. Not again. “Is that all?”

“The war goes on for us, but we’d like to know what you want. You have a choice. We will take you to wherever you want to go. You don’t have to decide now.”

But of course Jyn realizes she has to. There is a war on. The choices have become fewer with time. Was it a moment or a month since she had Cassian in her arms, since she had Bohdi and Chirrut and Baze all of Rogue I beside her? How long was it since anyone stayed for her?

Jyn says. “The Rebellion lives on. I fight with you.” Her voice sounds hollow to her ears but Mon Mothma smiles and reaches to take Jyn’s hand in her own and squeezes it. The touch is warm, startling, real. Jyn almost takes her hand away.

“Thank you,” Mon Mothma says. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. No one will forget.”

-=-=

When the medics cleared Jyn, she moves into officers’ quarters. A droid comes by and addresses her as “Captain Erso” and delivers a few suits of clothes. Jyn has a room that’s a private space. It had its own bed and its own fresher and even a small desk, atop of which is an empty duffle and a datapad. Jyn sits on the bed. There’s no window in this room.

They fed her before discharging her from the medbay. She’s not hungry. Perhaps she should study the blueprint of the base so she should at least know where the mess hall was. Last time everything was too confused. K2 was the one who ended up heating up the meals in the ship.

”He didn’t stay here often.”

Jyn looks up, General Draven’s standing in the doorway, looking tired. He wanted to kill my father, Jyn remembers. But we are on the same side.

“Who didn’t stay here?”

“Captain Cassian Andor,” Draven answers. “They gave you his quarters. His rank. The Alliance High Command had to smooth over appearance of having some sort of unity and made you a sergeant when they learned Rogue One took off. It’s officially a secret mission. You succeeded and got promoted.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re officially an officer of the Rebel Alliance and follows orders for the good of the Alliance, but you know all about that and it’s not why I am here.”

Jyn waits on Cassian’s bed. She doesn’t stand for her commanding officer. Draven hasn’t earned it.

“Cassian was an excellent officer, the best. I, and everyone else, owe him a great deal. He had no next of kin, but he’s always said to leave everything to his crew, so we think you should have this.” He hands her the box between his hands. “There’s a medal for you, too. A bit hastily struck, but it’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Jyn stands and accepts both.

Draven stares at the bandage still on her hand. “I- uh. Mission brief is tomorrow morning, six. If you’re ready.”

Jyn can’t quite tell the last is meant to be comfort or challenge. Probably both.

“I will be ready,” she says. Draven looks surprised, then nods, and dismisses himself.

Jyn sits back down on the bed. Inside the box is a holodisc, a kyber crystal, and a tangled piece of fur or hair wrapped in a ribbon. Jyn takes the kyber crystal and strings it with the one she still has around the neck and puts everything else aside.

How can being awake be so exhausting? She’s scarcely moved the entire day. Jyn goes to sleep in Cassian’s room, Cassian’s bed. It’s a foolish thought that makes the pillow wet beneath her face.

In a way, she is home. Cassian came back for her even now. Except not- there’s no trace of the man in a place he seldom inhabits and space and its infinity has begrudged her of Cassian and the hope she has, for a brief moment, dared.

In the shadow of the room, it seems as if she can still see his face: the proud arch of his nose, the fierce look of his eyes, and the soft way he said her name.

When morning comes, Jyn has nowhere else to go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn conducts some business.

The Death Star plans have been lost and then found. Rumors say Princess Leia have found a living Jedi. Some reports say she’s found two Jedis. Jyn receives this news with a new numbness she doesn’t know she’s still capable.

In the mess, pilots still young enough to laugh when talking of dogfights and the upcoming battles are beginning to fill in the empty seats.  _They_ are now _us_ , something Jyn still could not readily accept or believe- that she should find these strangers as companions in arms. It's been a long time since she's found her anonymity unsettling instead of safe. 

Yet, a flashing dark-eyed glance across the room from a different face was enough to bring to bring to mind smoke and rain and warmth, as haunting and as impossible as any ghost she’s known. Jyn looks down at her plate, tries to remember the details of her new missions instead of recalling the sound of her own name spoken softer than a breath. Work, Saw had told her once, will get you through any grief.

Under the orders of the Council, the Rebel intelligence needs to clear the way for the princess, prepare squadrons for the destruction of the Empire, ensure the unity of Alliance throughout the Empire’s destruction and afterwards. On the way to her first off-world mission from Draven, she hears two Corellians swear creatively to each other that they would be very scrupulous and not be tempted. The laughter stops when Jyn enters the room. “Just don’t stay too long,” the Corellians tell her, friendly enough. “We’ve always had honest dealings with them, if protracted ones. It used to be a cushy post, when the Empire’s not so confident in the outer rim worlds.”

“Spending men for a desert or a swamp or some ice isn't worth it unless there are hyperlanes involved.”

Jyn has a list of items and intel she needs to collect in places she knows well and codewords she’s familiar with. It irritates her that the Alliance has a dossier that probably knows more of her than she cares to remember. This time, Jyn Erso, called Jeron Sy, is an agent of the Choam Company, the first of a series of shell companies that ultimately could be traced back the accounts that buy the bacta, ships, and blasters of the Alliance. The pressure from the Empire and the shifting allegiances means she would be closing, in person, the longstanding accounts of the company with Gorga Desilijic Aarrpo.

The transactions would be straightforward if not Gorga specialized in acquiring things not his own and making a profit out of them. Also, his family’s ties with the Empire have been growing stronger, profiteering from the Empire’s building of the Death Star.

Draven says, “We need someone his informants have no information on. Otherwise, the credits are as good as lost.” After eyeing the projection of Yavin IV and surrounding systems he continues, “We also need to call in our debts without alarming the authorities or his cousins,” as if it’s nothing at all to ask from a black-market syndicate boss on his own territory.

The trust would be touching except Jyn knows the cold calculus that drives spymasters. Draven’s dilemma’s obvious. With rumors of Jehda and Scarif traveling across the galaxy, the number of official and unofficial sympathizers of the Alliance have thinned and grown at the same time. Draven doesn’t know who to trust and Jyn, though new to the army of the Alliance, would be impervious to blackmail or bribery, not now.

Rogue One perished on Scarif. Jyn woke up in Yavin. Now, Jyn could no more betray the Alliance than betray herself.

It’s not a betrayal if he’s not there, Jyn reminds herself. Cassian and her made no promises, swore no oaths. She believed what he said, that’s all, and if Force has destined otherwise, it is neither Cassian’s fault nor her own. This sadness is a small thing against the universe.

So if she’s looking at a starfield fading from view or an alien sunset, green and blue like the sea and thinking it very beautiful and wishing, for the first time in her life for a very long time, to share the view with someone, the desire itself will have to be enough.

She’s always done well with what she has left and hope is not a small thing even if it’s never meant to be a solid shape to hold onto forever. Spun out of clouds and stories she tells herself at night, it’s good at least to be reminded of possibilities.

Jyn packs a few weapons carefully so that they don’t bulge from her clothes and added a blaster in plain sight. She has her own now and blinks harshly at the thought.

-=-=

The outpost of the Choam Company operates on the moon of the actual planet, considered uninhabitable by most sentient species. Since coming to the moon almost exclusively meant trade skirting on the edge of legality, the dun-colored clothes, the mild expressions, and a certain tenseness in every handshake, every greeting, the deep mistrust render every visitor alike, whether orange or blue, humanoid or otherwise.

Jyn enters the sixth floor of a nondescript building. She acquaints herself with the Twi’lek accountant whose smiles dies when Jyn removes her hood. And very rapidly, the Twi’lek also wipes away a tear.

The disappointment seems out of proportion to her presence.

“I’m here to close the accounts on behalf of the parent company,” Jyn says, alert.

“Yes, I have been informed. “ The Twi’lek gives Jyn a speculative look. “You all look very similar in some ways, but you’re not who I usually see.”

Jyn doesn’t know who the agent is before her. The Alliance, she is beginning to realise, operates on layers of secrecy Saw’s group has never cared to use. “I’m told that everything is ready.”

“Yes. All the documents and contracts have been gone over. Specialists have been consulted. And Gorga had his own people double-check and sign everything in triplicate.” As far as Jyn knows, she’s the only one aware that this post is Alliance. However, the Twi’leks are a conquered race with a natural enmity towards the Empire, and Jyn’s not insensible to the fact that closing the accounts mean the woman would be out of a job and possibly a livelihood in a world controlled by Hutts. “You have your reservations,” she comments.

“If the Choam Company closing all the accounts with Goga, even the hyperlanes, it means it’ll no longer engage in transportation, losing a huge profit given the expected traffic.”

Jyn nods. Those are good points and the Rebel Alliance will still use the hyperlanes. They simply cannot afford the risk of the number of middle-men.

“Yes. Given what has happened to Alderann, the directors have decided to concentrate the investment over a smaller territory,” Jyn answers smoothly and she hopes, rather soothingly. Running out of funds seems reasonable enough. Choam is based in Alderaan. And Jyn rather asks questions of her own. “What can you tell me about Gorga?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the reply comes: “Don’t get distracted.”

-=-=

“We will have dinner first,” Gorga announces in his office when Jyn arrives and hardly after she begins to speak of her business.

The doors to Gorga’s residence is tasteful, opulent in subtle ways: the live musicians the guest cannot see, the glitter of chips of moonstone in the walls, the scent of fresh flowers, and of the availability of chilled appetizers. He knows all the careful ways of treating a guest. the courses come in one by one, endless. The company, slave or free, talk animatedly of poetry and music, never quite veering into philosophy or the dangerous space of politics.

Jyn nods and smiles and looks and brings alcohol to her lips without drinking, tamping down her suspicions.  Sure enough, after a while, Gorga manages to leave the room without bringing attention to himself. An impressive feat, considering the bulk. Jyn follows and makes three turns around the corridor before she hears the voices. Gorga’s keeping his voice to a murmur, but his translator has no such concerns. The conversation revolved around Empire’s new conservatism with its contractors after “some Alliance business”.

“Busybodies,” Gorga said. “Really should keep to themselves.”

“I am sorry I’m late.” Jyn says, walking into the room. She looks steadily at everyone around the table. Some of their underlings had employed her skills in the past. “My company and I have been thinking of moving our investment from the core planets, given the volatility of the situation.” She takes an empty seat, daring Gorga to call her bluff. “And we’re withdrawing about a six hundred thousand credits the day after tomorrow; but the count, expecting the revenue of the past year, should be increased. You see, I’ve been offered a draft of of eight hundred and seventy,” it’s always good to go for exact numbers, “Unfortunately, by a company based on the core planet.”

It was a dangerous game, but unverifiable. Core planets with Imperial ties had remained wealthy despite the Empire’s seizures of businesses and properties with Republican ties. Gorga’s investors and even Gorga himself are not strictly in the Empire’s favor.

“Which core planet?” Gorga demands. “There’s no export to the outer rim territories without transacting with us.”

Jyn shrugs. It’s the doubt she’s planting that’s important. “I just hope you’re not having trouble with payment for my accounts. And if there is, perhaps I can help.”

“A small matter of time,” replies Gorga, sly. “But we have been thinking-”

It took some wrangling, but Jyn finally got it out of him. She slips out what Gorga continues to argue with his associates and heads over the office. She sends a message to Draven and after waiting for an hour waiting to be patched through, gives up.

After questioning her sad assistant, Jyn finds the man in question drowning himself in rhyll. Surprisingly, human.

She knocks over his glass. He looks at her, rheumy eyed and fist raised.

“Hey, calm down,” Jyn says, raising her arms. She slides closer to him. “Buy you another.” The jacket seems familiar, the remnant of an Imperial flightsuit. “Didn’t know you were going to end up here, right?”

Jyn’s in good clothes. Her face is clean and her accent crisp Coruscanti. The man slid his gaze to her. “Yeah, awful place. Stinks of dirt.”

A snob, then. Somehow it makes Jyn feels better.

“Betrayed you too, I think?”

“Is it that obvious?”

On the right track then. “And if you get away with it, what do you think they’ll give you? Perhaps a medal?” she says lightly. Jyn has a medal. She hasn’t cared to look at it.

“You think you’re funny,” the man says blearily.

“I ended up here,” Jyn says. “I have to see the humor.”

“I suppose you’re right. It’s just unfair,” he begins. “I was suppose to end up somewhere mid-rim, like Naboo, not this bit of speck, watching the ports like some dockhand.”

“No point in making yourself more miserable,” Jyn points out.

“Everyone’s going to be miserable soon,” the man mutters. “You’ve heard about Scarif already course.”

There’s a pain, a twinge, just inside her chest nowhere in particular at the mention of the name. “Of course.”

The man nods, as if sympathic, pours her a drink from his own cup. “The Empire ordering entire planetary populations to move. Do you know what a ridiculous thing that is? It drives the prices of the slaves down if you’ve so many lost ships in space. And then, there’s that Gorga fellow with his hollow shell. His business are drying up. Wookies are in rebellion again. They’re not going to work the mines.”

Jyn agrees that it is indeed ridiculous. Getting him drunk is easy. Not knocking him with a blaster is more difficult.

She still doesn’t hear back from the Alliance.

-=-=

“You’re really good at this,” Gorga says, laughing, when Jyn returns. “Choam Company always have the best people.”

Yes, Jyn is. She’s an excellent pickpocket. One of Saw’s second-in-commands had a prehensile tail, seven fingers, and a penchant for entertain children with magic tricks. No one alive knows that anymore. That Imperial will be arrested as notorious felon at the next checkpoint thanks to a reprogrammed and sliced ID card. A bit hastily done, but a taste of a prison cell would do him good.

True to his word; or at least, true in front of Gorga’s investors, the credits are transferred.

“Must you leave?” Gorga asks afterwards. “Stay and be my agent. Unlike Choam, our territories are expanding. A woman with your talents would be valued.”

“A woman with my talents,” Jyn says with certain tenseness, “is valued everywhere.”

“Quite true,” Gorga says; the same red-eyed slyness comes into his eyes. “But with the Death Star’s destruction, the growth is unlimited.”

“How so?” Jyn asks, lifting an eyebrow, heart pounding.

Gorga makes a show of hmmphs and a series of noises, as if it takes a great effort for him to answer. “I’m sure Tarquin will want another one.”

Jyn’s news has been slow. No wonder she’s not hearing anything from Draven. The lines of the communication to Outer Rim agents must’ve been in lockdown. A thread of worry wounds through her. “The Death Star was destroyed?”

“It may be, soon,” Gorga answers. “Well, either that or those Rebels are on a suicide run, but I seldom know their council to do anything imprudent.”

“And if it is a suicide run?” Jyn sits up, barely suppressing the worry in her voice.

“Well, one Death Star is never going to be enough, now that they know they can build one from the plans. Will you take an offer?”

Jyn falls silent. “If what you say Is true, then I think I will have multiple offers shortly.”

“Bold creature,” Gorga says. “Think on it.”

-=-=

On the way to Eadu, Cassian sat down beside her where she was slumped against the bulkhead. “Shock is understandable,” he said, so quietly and so obviously awkward that K2 turned around and said something about administering appropriate medication being more effective than conversation.

“I’m not in shock,” Jyn argued.

She wasn’t. She was angry, sad, but those were familiar emotions. Old friends that kept her company through the endless dark nights, the endless feeling of being _lost_.

“I am, then,” Cassian said.

Jyn threw a look at him. “You disobeyed an order. It’s not the end of the world.”

Cassian stared at her as if she had grown tentacles. Then after a moment, he let out a long sigh. “I hope you are right.”

They were sitting close, shoulders not quite touching. He was still slightly damp from the rain and smelled like the burnt fiber and wet fur.

“Jyn, I am sorry about your father.”

“I am sorry, too,” Jyn said.

-=-=

Draven has gone dark. Yavin 4 is in lockdown. Jeron Sy of the Choam Company has eight hundred thousand credits in her untraceable account and a job offer from Gorga, on whom she has blackmail material.

Jyn Erso makes her way back to Choam Company office instead of the luxurious room Gorga has appointed to her in his palace. She’s being followed, but why should it matter? Her mind is wandering further than her body ever has has; neither physical space nor memories has consumed the shadows of her thoughts. The hard edges of the kyber crystals around her neck knock against her skin. She’s still awake when the sky begins to darken with imperial ships.

-=-=


	3. Chapter 3

The silence seemed to have swallowed the world. 

“They’re heading toward Yavin.”

Jyn has forgotten who said it. For two standard days, Imperial ships traveling hyperlanes blotted out the horizon. For two standard days, Jyn paid attendance on Gorga’s court while her own communication line lies dead. Travelers, smugglers, and pirates grounded by the Empire shared their theories. Speculations named all the systems within Gordian Reach until between the brawling and the shouting and cobbled-together navigational simulations, a consensus was reached- the conclusion so puzzling that the court fell temporarily silent. In the Yavin system, the only things of note are the trees of Massassin Valley, as equally useless to smugglers and the galaxy at large as the kyber crystals of Jedha city.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Gorga says, when the news of Alderann’s destruction is confirmed by the stray imperial officer who had come down to deliver orders and was, of course, consequently invited to dine and luxuriate at Gorga’s expense.

But Jyn’s sorrow’s fixed and frozen. If her face is wane and her answers mild and curt, Gorga’s not very capable of concealing his glee. Jyn’s evasiveness regarding her plans seems to delight him. He has come to believe, Jyn realises, that Jyn is not only familiar with the Empire, but that she is somehow directly involved. Choam Company’s loyalties has always been ambiguous; furthermore, Jyn herself has come alone and not immediately left after their negotiations. She has so far not disabused him of that notion. Being in view around Gorga’s court as evidence of Gorga’s healthy finances keeps her safe, valuable, and in the center of the nexus that will tell her what’s happening to Yavin and the Alliance. 

“The news must go to my cousin on Tattoine,” Gorga says. “To capitalize on the traffic that will soon go his way.”

“Yavin is quite a distance away from Tattoine,” Jyn says, suspicious. 

“But ,” Gorga says, offering her a delicacy tinged with spice that Jyn has led him to believe she prefers, “the profit will not be inconsiderable.”

Gorga thinks in credits and believes the same of everyone around him. With the Empire mobilizing and the reality of the Death Star established, the urgency to get the news to Tattoine means perhaps the Hutts have decided that the time hedging their bets are over. Perhaps the Tattoine cousin is even less loyal to the Empire than Gorga, whose criminal empire flirts on the edge of Galactic law. The contract with the obsolete Choam Company, for example, would’ve not borne up under scrutiny. 

Jyn has no intention of being on Gorga’s messenger but she wants to be off of this moon. The dinners have become obscene. There’s no intelligence in drunkards pawing at Twi’leks with poison darts. 

“I will take the news to him,” Jyn volunteers, as he expects. After a moment, she adds, “Or whatever news you want to tell him.” He has not quite expected _that_.

Gorga gets a droid and a ship for her within the day. 

-=-=

The moment her ship cleared the system, Jyn checks communication with the Alliance. Rather, with some educated guess, she attempts hacking it. Alliance’s security has always been lacking in the technological front, but that’s why they have people like General Draven, whose elaborate system of misinformation and cryptospeak could identify Jyn Erso and hijack Liana Hallick from an imperial prison.

Jyn has just reached the first server when Draven himself comes online. 

“My mission was completed two days ago,” Jyn answers, forcing herself to be calm and merely absorb the facts. “Your funds are secured. I am heading to Tattoine because Gorga wants a message to be delivered to his cousin. He believes that the Empire will build a second Death Star.”

She can hear the hiss of breath even through the static. “What do you know of Tattoine?”

“A desert like Jehda, out of the Empire’s eye.”

“I don’t know what you know-” Draven begins. “The Death Star’s destroyed. Yavin’s compromised. Rendezvous at Hoth.”

“I will return to Hoth,” Jyn says, a bit too quickly, “Once I ascertain that a second Death Star is nothing more than conjecture.” After a pause she adds, “If it is acceptable.”

“Yes, go to Tattoine,” Draven answers. He sounds tired. “Why not, the Jedis are now giving orders and the senators are too trusting even now. Keep this channel open. Report anything you find. May the Force be with you.”

Then his voice crackles to a close and Jyn’s alone again while light brightens and folds around her in hyperdrive, traveling the vast distances on Gorga’s hyperlanes and leaving the unpleasant memory of waiting behind. Yavin 4, with its jungles and endless water and the promise of home are gone, too.  She’ll never go back to the little empty room and the vast halls of strangers who nod or glance quickly away at her passing. And Cassian, if he’s alive, will never come back for her there. Imagine- Cassian alive! 

Jyn’s alive. She’s free to find him. Through the whole length of the galaxy, like the romantic hero of a holovid. The Death Star’s destroyed! The mission’s complete! Her father’s hope had yielded all that! Mere hope has given them all of this-

The ship’s on autopilot, heading toward a desert planet where no one will know her name except the one she gives. Jyn goes to the back where her cot is, lies down, hugs her knees to her chest, and within the hollow echo of victory, begins to cry.

-=-=

On Mos Eisley, a Hutt minion with collared buttoned to the neck greets her by name while standing beneath the burning noonday sun of Tattoine.

“A tour first I think,” she says, her feet soaking up the warm seeping through to her shoes from the sand. She doesn’t trust him not to stab her in the back. Gorga’s relation with his cousin contains too many unknowns for her to get into a transport with him across the desert. More than that, no Hutt sets up base on a planet known for people who are who they say they are. 

Chalmun’s cantina, however, is curiously devoid of criminals. Apparently the Imperials have been by recently, looking for droids. “Ridiculous,” her guide tells her, meaningfully, “there are droids everywhere; most of them buried in the dunes.” 

The warning’s obvious enough, Jyn focuses her attention on the few Stormtroopers still loitering by the door. A man, hood drawn low, but wearing an Imperial insignia on his sleeve is sitting and talking quietly to a group at a table inside. And quite suddenly, in the brief lull of the crashing music, Jyn hears his voice. You are going to get yourself killed, she tells herself, but what else is new? She walks past him. He sees her. The acknowledgement is in the slight widening of the eyes. More, he grips her hand. It's not possible except he recognizes her. The ghost becomes  the moment- he recognizes her. 

“Get your hand off of me,” Jyn hisses. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Bohdi says, under his breath. And it is Bohdi, twitching slightly, attempting to smile and be apologetic all at the same time. It’s far too obvious. 

“I already have a pilot,” Jyn says aloud for the audience, just in case anyone has seen.

“You can’t afford him!” Someone around them says, slurring the words. “He works for the Empire.”

“Hah! And I work for the Emperor,” Jyn mocks. “I can afford whoever I like. What do you think?” Jyn leans close.

“No accounting for taste,” Jyn hears someone mutter behind her. 

Bohdi looks appalled, but doesn’t resist as Jyn pulls him up to the bar, hand hard on his forearm. “You are not what I expect to find here,” she tells him. 

“Neither are you,” Bohdi says, so earnest that it hurts to look at him. “Not in all the universe.” 

Jyn wrenches her gaze away from his face. 

“I’m staying around tonight,” she turns and around informs the minion following her far too closely and far too soberly.

The alien spat something green to the ground. “Humans,” he comments, derisive. “Biological impulses.”

For a moment, Jyn pauses. Truthfully, she had been deemed too young and angry for certain tactics the Partisans employed-- especially those that seems inefficient. But she can pretend, offer a weakness that her enemies will focus on exploiting. “Yeah, we all got them,” Jyn lets her tone gets slightly menacing and draws Bohdi closer. “Tell your master I shall see him tomorrow.”

“My orders are that you are to stay alive until tomorrow. You are booked for an audience for breakfast.”

All this vested interest in her survival’s almost flattering if she’s not being used as a pawn.

“Noted,” Jyn keeps her manner easy. It probably still comes off as tense, but that only makes her normal. “But those are your orders. I’m staying here at my own peril. I’m sure the Empire will protect me.” She throws him a few credit chips as the better argument. 

“Three hours,” the minion says coldly. “You are coming with me in three hours. Humans are not long-lived species. Three hours should be enough for your...diversion. I shall inform the palace.” His gaze passes over Bohdi, however, and the way that Bohdi’s sneaking looks at her.

Jyn hopes that the looks are taken for flirtation. On the Alliance base, human physiology and customs are well-known. The Outer Rim worlds, insular in their own way, have too many species so that behavior’s more simply grouped. In all the years that Jyn spent running with Saw or by herself, she’s been the age and gender of whatever she can convince others she was. She’s been so convincing that Saw himself had forgotten that  _ sixteen _  meant to his very human soldier. 

“Three hours,” Jyn confirms, ignoring Bohdi’s frown. “And I’ll come with you.”

-=-=

Evening newly fallen, the two suns hung suspended ominous against the gray tinge of the atmosphere. Bohdi has Jyn in his arms in a little room in a back-alley, saying to her, “I thought you were dead.”

Bohdi looks startled when Jyn steps away, but forges on, “They told me you are dead.” The question of _why a_ _re you then alive_ goes unspoken.

Jyn clings to the question. The door shuts, locks. Dustmotes glow in the spill of light from the single window gaping toward the sky. Close contact shocks her body into responding: violence, affection, despair. But it’s merely Bohdi, whispering in her ear whether she knows for certain they’re alive. She looks at him, half-wonderingly. He’s in an imperial uniform, a flightsuit different from the one she’s seen before, he had fellow pilots, but he recognizes her. His hair’s been cut, his beard trimmed, but his face is scarcely changed, if a little thinner, the shadows under his eyes a little darker. She touches his neck, finds a long thin scar and feels the pulse there, dig in her fingernails a little and watch carefully for the wince as if to make sure he’s not a ghost. 

“They told me that I was the only survivor,” Jyn murmurs, refusing to think beyond the facts. The room’s not secure; it’s also half a wreck. They’re sitting side by side on some sort of large bed, cratered in the middle. It’s easier just to whisper. Jyn makes sure the shape of her mouth’s covered by her scarf.

Bohdi woke up in Yavin 4 two days later after Scarif. The calculations are simple even for a child and Bohdi is a pilot. 

“I was in bacta for a while,” Bohdi offers, as an explanation or as a reassurance. An excuse, Jyn thinks, for themselves. “The medics say it was touch-and-go for a long time.” He is sitting very still, taking careful breaths, brows furrowed as if trying to remember. For a moment, the slow whirr of the ventilation system fills the silence between them. 

Jyn remembers what Mon Mothma told her, that she’s free to go if she wishes, that she has their thanks. She has a medal, she remembers, from Draven. “Hastily struck.”

“They told me,” Jyn starts, boundaries falling away though she ought to be wary, “that an evacuating Imperial ship picked me up and then the Alliance caught the Imperial ship.”

“They told me the same.” 

“What about everyone else?” Everyone. Anyone. Jyn focuses on the moment. Too much hope could hurt. 

“You haven’t seen the records?”

Jyn shakes her head, bracing herself. Bohdi looks her and tells her, gently, about the blackbox and the drone that took the final recording sweep of the beach in Scarif. According to the analysts on Yavin, it marked Jyn for extrication, but not Cassian.

“I would show it to you if I could,” Bohdi says quietly, “When we get back, perhaps-” he trails off, seeing the look on Jyn’s face. 

Nothing has changed the moment except this- to know that Cassian’s body’s visible in the image while Jyn herself was already gone. It feels as if someone is tearing a barely closed wound open with a hook. Jyn stifles a cry from her throat.

Bohdi goes on, not looking away, “When I woke up, Admiral Raddus asked me how familiar I was with shipping of precious cargo: my mission was to map the oddities in imperial shipping routes. ” He pauses, wets his lip: nervous, confused, both. “Also, to scout for the forces stationed around Dantooine. He allowed me to follow them to Tattoine.” He throws up his hands. “It makes no sense when I got here.”

“Because there’s nothing on Tattoine except smugglers,” Jyn says, the mirror of Bohdi’s story disturbing in a way she can almost understand, except the knowledge slips away just as she’s near to catch it. “There are no resources except sand unless you’re doing business with a Hutt.”

“But I am,” Bohdi answers. “They bribe us extravagantly here. Not that there’s anything to buy, but I’ve never been so rich in my life.”

Jyn hasn’t either. She tells him about Gorga, about chasing a faint lead regarding the possibility of a second Death Star. They couldn’t have ended up on the same planet by chance, neither knowing each other’s alive. Raddus knows. Draven knows. Even Mon Mothma must know. Coordinating the successful assault on the Death Star surely meant they can’t be working at cross-purposes. Why then are Bohdi and Jyn essentially exiled? Or merely out of the way? Given funds, a rendezvous point, and no knowledge of each other’s existence. 

There’s a part of her that convinced that it’s Saw’s game all over again. They’ll leave her when she outlives her usefulness. Everyone’s an asset, to be expended at will, except of course heroes of Scarif do not deserve to go home empty-handed. However, the lie bothers her. Why convince them that each other has died? 

There’s a plot that’s happening: Jyn, Bohdi, the Alliance, the blackmarket, and even the parts of the Empire may be involved. It’ll be too difficult for her to unravel it herself. And it must be worthwhile to unravel. Jyn’s never trusted anyone except for those who followed her to Scarif. “There must be a reason for all of this. If there’s going to be a second Death Star- Help me figure it out.” The rebellion, with its subterfuges and saboteurs, fighting alone, under another name-

“You can’t be using your own name,” Jyn says, but Bohdi’s staring at her with an odd expression on his face. Bohdi’s face, Jyn’s realising, may be scarcely changed, but there are now flashes, where his expressions are familiar and strange all at the same time. 

“You look like Galen when you’re thinking.”

The non-sequitur catches Jyn by surprise. “What?”

“I met him while waiting in line in Eadu. In a mess hall,” Bohdi begins, wistful in a way that he hasn't had time for on Jehda, Eadu, or Scarif, “I wasn’t suppose to be there. I had snuck in because I was hungry and he started talking to me. He asked me who I was. His daughter, he says, would be about my age.”

Jyn’s forgotten that out of everyone she knows, Bohdi’s the one who perhaps knows her father the best, the most recent. Bohdi looks down at his hands, fidgets.  “I’ve seen him before of course, watching us. Then I watched for him. He’s the head of research. Krennic trusts him completely. And when Galen asks for me, Krennic never says no.”

There’s something missing from Bohdi’s story, but Jyn listens on. 

“I was beginning to think I didn’t exist. That I wasn’t suppose to be there, working for the Empire, flying through storms. He said that it brought me to him, for a purpose. You have your father’s conviction, Jyn Erso,” Bohdi says and Jyn relaxes at the use of her name. “And I am with you to the end. I have been.”  He raises his head and laughs so brightly that Jyn catches the glimpse of the man he must’ve been once, prior to Bor Gullet, the pilot who betrayed the Empire and crossed a desert filled with danger armed with only the belief that he’s right and doing good. He’s still that man, older and sadder perhaps, like everyone else, trying to recover themselves from the pieces.

“You never told me what name you are traveling under.”

“They gave me the name Willix,” Bohdi answers. “The Hutt’s Twi’lek majordomo already knows my name. The Imperial pilots you see here are all scouting new supply routes.” He shakes his head. “You are right, something is happening, but there's so much noise. I don’t know if it’s going to be a second Death Star or something worse or perhaps the Empire's merely flailing.” 

Willix, there’s something familiar about that name. Jyn’s tempted to ask Bohdi along to her audience with the Hutt, but he still has a mission to execute and it’s safer to have backup. She says as much and Bohdi agrees, looking as reluctant as Jyn feels. 

“So, what shall we do with the rest of the time? They don’t get too many humans here, I gather,” Bohdi says, looking around the room with its oddly assorted furniture. 

Jyn rolls her eyes. “Depends on the reputation you want.”

Bohdi looks at her then says, decisive, “No offence, but I’m taking a nap. It’s hard to sleep securely around here." He peers at Jyn's face. "Wake me up after an hour and you can take one, too.”

Jyn takes the first watch and tries not to listen to Bohdi’s nightmares. 


	4. Chapter 4

“My cousin recommends you,” says Jabba the Hutt, “though I gather he is in considerable amount of debt.” He yanks the chain of the girl sitting at his feet so that she rises to place a plop of something squirming into his mouth.

Jyn raises an eyebrow. She stands a safe distance away from Jabba Desilijic Tiure so that she doesn’t have to raise her head when she speaks to him. Unlike his cousin, Jabba sits on a dais, keeps his slaves and their chains in sight, and murks his court with the scent of something sharp and unpleasantly heady.

“Nonetheless,” Jabba continues, “I am curious of the message you’re to deliver to me given that your taste tends toward human. This is not a human world. Bib says that it’s an odd choice for a smuggler to take up with an Imperial.”

Bib Fortuna, the majordomo who let Jyn keep her weapons while in audience with Jabba, inclines his head and smiles fawningly. He may be the most menacing Twi’lek Jyn’s ever seen. The smile’s a red slash studded with teeth.

“I am not a smuggler,” Jyn answers after waiting for the translation, refusing to be startled that Jabba knows of her tryst with Bohdi. Joren Sy, an Alderaan agent with Coruscanti ties, would raise too many questions if she has Jyn’s fluency in Huttese, a piece of childhood moving from planet to planet with Saw and his motley crew. “I bring a message and an opportunity to you concerning the Empire.”

There’s a movement in the corner of Jyn’s eye but may be  just the flick of Jabba’s tail, coiled and draped across an array of slaves and cushions. “What does the Empire’s concern to do with me?” Jabba asks.

“Gorga has controlling interest in the hyperlanes. I am willing to invest if i could be assured that there will be cargo traveling on those lanes.”

“Yes, we’ve been told that your planet’s destruction has left you willing to take on certain investment..risks, considering recent developments.” Jabba says to the translator. “And what does Grakkus say?” Jabba asks Bib, in Huttese. Bib shakes his head.

But Gorga is member of the Hutt Council while Grakkus is merely controlling Nar Shaddaa, so Jyn continues, “Gorga hopes that we can all profit from this new venture given what we know of the resources the Empire must assemble.”

“She says as if she’s certain. Can the Empire regroup so quickly?” Jabba asks in Huttese. To Jyn he says, “It will be an interesting time for us if the Empire allows us profit.”

It does not mean that the Hutts never deals with the Empire, only that the deals have been unsatisfactory even for them. It does not surprise Jyn. The Empire’s rapid expansion has followed the same principle that guided the completion and use of the Death Star.

“There are Imperial pilots in the ports and cantinas,” Bib cast a baleful look at Jyn, “But they are not trained for war. We have bribed them.”

“The Empire’s grasp is vast and not easily shaken despite the presence of the Rebel Alliance,” Jyn answers, “Cargo pilots may not be trained for war, but I have seen Stormtroopers here.”

A low muttering starts somewhere near the walls. Jabba narrows his eyes at her. “Aren’t you quick? Joren Sy, and so late in your grief over your home planet.”

It’s meant to be a jab, but Jyn shrugs. “I belonged to an Alderann enterprise but I am no Aderann.”

“No, you are not,” Jabba agrees. “You are friendly with the Empire.”

“Ties of blood,” Jyn answers.

“Hah!” Bib cracks out. “I am right!” he says to Jabba. Huttese again. “The human is a spy.”

Jabba tightens his grip on the chain of the slavegirl he is holding. She hurries up and plops one more wriggling snack into his mouth, then two and three and four.

Jyn tries not to let her distaste show as Jabba chews. Her face is blank as the desert. She does not name the second Death Star. If it exists. Bohdi’s presence on Tatooine and the presence of the cargo pilots seem to indicate an unusual movement of the Empire, but Tatooine is known for lawlessness, it is just as likely that the Empire is choosing an easy target to asserts its authority in a time where it may be perceived as weakening.

“Then you are very far from home.”

“If you believe so. But it’s important to wealthy, which agrees with me, and under the Empire, there’s no freedom without permissions. ” Jyn answers. “Gorga proposes a partnership, exclusive to just you and him.” And shut out Grakkus and the rest of the Hutts’ council, it goes unsaid.

“And you?”

“He declines to take the journey himself. I will set my fees accordingly.”

Bib scoffs. Jabba closes his eyes. Jyn waits, patient.

Eventually, Jabba makes to bring up the flicker of a screen and says, “I will give you leave to reside in my palace, eat at my table. In return, we will do a test run. We have a shipping manifest from a client and my hunters are pursuing.”

This time, it’s Jyn who’s taken aback. It’s easy to forget that Hutts live longer than humans. In fact, humanoids lifespans are shorter than many of the species in the galaxy. And Jabba has had control of Tatooine beyond living memory of any man. Outer Rim worlds are difficult to control foremost because of its loyalties to familiar ties. Further, Jyn would not be the first person to come forth with an offer that seems to requires nothing of him except to share the cargo on the hyperlanes means sharing the payment.

But Jyn’s not after the money. She needs to know what’s traveling on those hyperlanes that requires the presence of Imperial cargo pilots and Stormtroopers. The Hutts do not fully trust each other. They are at once family, partners, and rivals. Gorga has given Jyn careful instructions. He has suspicions he wants confirmed.

“Shall I wait or join them?”

Jabba waves a hand, apparently bored. “Run where you will. Leave a surety.” He closes his eyes, the confidence of a creature who holds an entire planet in thrall.

Without a word Jyn takes out the vibroblade she’s concealed in her jacket and lays it on the ground beneath her feet. The shuffle towards her quieten suddenly. So, Jabba has bodyguards, though not quick ones.

“A blade.” Jabba opens and swivels his eyes. “Just like the story you were weaving me the other day about sword, Bib, but see, this one’s harmless. Did you know that, I wonder.”

Bib Fortuna remains silent.     

“I hope the story ends happily,” Jyn interrupts. “My surety.”

“We shall see,” Jabba finishes.

-=-=

There’s no way to reach Bohdi without rousing suspicion so Jyn keeps their meetings an open secret. Every tenday, they meet at the cantina and shut themselves in a little room, trusting that the lack of other humans and the belief that Jyn is merely looking for companionship would be enough for discretion.

It places Bohdi in danger, but according to Bohdi, “A liaison with a woman like yourself is a compliment” which is not what Jyn expects Bohdi to say, but reminds herself that she doesn’t know Bohdi except in the days after torture and leading up to the immolation of Scarif.

An affair isn’t in itself enough for discretion, but routine makes people lazy. The spies that follow her report to the same master that bribes the Imperial cargo pilots for their slips of the tongue. As long as the Jabba believe that Jyn’s here for the credits, they’ll find her controllable. After all, there is, no bounty for reporting to the Empire about a non-existent crime without implicating herself.

Bohdi says, on their fifth meeting, that he needs to go off planet.

“We are being recalled for logistical reasons,” he answers. “The pilots are running a lottery who gets to stay. Willix has a vested interest in staying, but too much interest can cause trouble later on.”

“So you’re going to an Imperial base?”

Bohdi looks into the distance. He nudges the food he bought toward Jyn. The Empire may not pay as much as the Hutts, but the food they have are more palatable to humans. “Not a base, more of an outstation of the Outer Rim. I think everyone got tired of waiting. We think that we’re ordered off planet to force someone to actually give an order. All this milling around has led to talk-”

“And Jabba’s test run is scheduled the moment you’re mostly off planet.” Jyn chews thoughtfully on the sweet-sticky bread that’s so obviously a luxury that she almost asked why Bohdi gave it to her.

“The moment they intercept a ship contracted with the Empire, the Empire will pay attention. Be careful. You told me yourself don’t have to be on that run.”

Jyn can sit back and wait for the reports, but she doesn’t trust the information of the reports that will be filtered to her. “The Hutts hope that his timely assistance will mean that he’ll have a better chance to bid on the contract even if there’s never been such blatant contact before”

“I don’t know about,” Bohdi says, “Cargo pilots of the Empire doesn’t just fly ships belonging to the Empire. We fly transports for both human and cargo at the Empire’s order, but the ships do not always bear the same logo, outwardly.”

Jyn takes a sharp breath. Jyn has hung long enough around the partisans to know the way recruitment works. <i>They</i> choose before you ever do. It’s not difficult to imagine that her father would be the same. Bohdi’s a pilot knows how to get through all the checkpoints of the empire in different guises. She should’ve known when he brought up the logs, but it’s been too difficult to see anything else except the mission-  Low level imperial defectors are not uncommon. Her father is trapped in Eadu and the Death Star was already nearing completion. What else does Bohdi Rook know beyond Galen’s message to his daughter that causes the entire empire to look for him?

“I’m putting it together now,” Bohdi has his head in his hands. “How was the building of the Death Star kept secret? It’s huge, giant. Galen- Galen told me once that it’s assembled in space and while the technology of the kyber crystals are secret- Eadu’s responsible for it-- things like turrets, security, landing pads, bathrooms- they are all built all over the Empire. And it’ll be suspicious if every order was heading toward the same direction, especially since a construction project cannot move.”

“And you think something like that is happening again?” Gorga suspects it. Jabba suspects it. Neither’s quite willing to part with the information they have, but if Jyn can tease out what’s merely a guess to what’s real, but this time, they’ll be able to know before anything worse actually happens. The thought of a second Death Star-

“I don’t know. I should.” Bohdi answers, brows furrowed, a face in pain, trying to search for what he’s lost. “They think I could.”

“No,” Jyn shakes her head. “They didn’t. No one knows you, what you can do. The Council doesn’t know us. They want us as bait, as scouts, as anything because they don’t know what else to do with us. They had an entire spy network, they had-” she almost says <i>Cassian</i> but Bohdi hears it anyways. His eyes widen, almost imperceptibly. “They don’t believe it. And they’re unlikely to believe it’s possible again, not in such a short time.”

“They don’t have the plans anymore; at least not the complete ones. It took them fifteen years to build the first one and my father was there.”

Jyn stops. Bohdi looks like he wants to say something. He bites his lip, glances at her and then looks down again, almost guilty. A horrifying thought crosses Jyn’s mind, the dark wings of it unfurling, casting a long shadow. Jyn swallows. Despite the heat in the room, she shivers.

Sometimes, Jyn dreams about the message. Other days, she forgets. The words she remembers are that of comfort: Stardust. Love. Hope. Home that had been real. It’s a sweetness that she draws from in the dry quiet of the desert night, a pleasure that sinks deep into her bones.

But it didn’t take the Empire fifteen years to build the Death Star with the help of Galen Erso. It took fifteen years because Galen Erso was there. Galen Erso took fifteen years and built in a weakness for the Alliance. And he didn’t send for Jyn until the weakness was complete. Until the Death Star was complete.

And the Rebel Alliance deemed that it’s finally time to send Cassian and K2 to break her out of a Wobani prison to track down and kill her father even before they even believed that the Death Star existed. But only because Cassian couldn’t-

Eventually, she realises she’s speaking aloud. Bohdi’s staring at her, transfixed, eyes round.  She’s not crying, but her eyes hurt. She wipes them with the back of her sleeve. “We have to make sure.”

As if a man coming out of haze, Bohdi blinks, then reaches out. His sweeps his thumb beneath her eyes, where the liner’s smudged. “Be careful of the sun,” Bohdi says, the delicate lines around his mouth shifting as if he’s about to say something more.

“Be careful,” Jyn answers.

This is all they can do. They have no friend except each other.

-=-=

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn works with Jabba's team.

Jyn’s aware that someone has been watching her. She lifts herself to the balls of her feet and tighten hand on the hilt of the returned vibroblade at her waist.

“Dengar,” he finally says, as if coming to a decision, ”head of this operation if you don’t know.”  

“I’m just along for the ride,” answers Jyn, turning around. The test run, as Jabba terms it, is a raid. A motley crew of spacers, smugglers, and mercenaries occupies the hold of an old tug. There are also two bounty hunters.

Dengar tilts his head from the pilot chair while his partner, the other bounty hunter, methodologically goes through the flight check.  “All right, along-for-the-ride, stay out of the way of blaster fire. The Hutts may want you alive but accidents happen.”

Jyn ignores the snickers around her. She’s armed: blaster, vibroblade, truncheon, and sundry explosives. Raiding an Imperial ship is asking for the full might of the Empire on Tatooine, but raiding a ship peripherally contracted with the Empire has much fewer risks. And those who don’t pay for protection travel the lanes at their own risk.

They come up from behind the freighter and attaches themselves to the hull slowly, slow enough that it doesn’t trigger the proximity alarm. The shield grid is then isolated and weakened. By the time they’re onboard, the emergency pods have all left but one, leaving them the cargo.

“Jumpy crew,” Dengar says, staying far too close beside Jyn in their trek through the ship and the flickering lights of the alarm. “But I’m never one to complain about living.”

The captain remains in the foremost cabin. Those who can navigate Hutt controlled hyperlanes know the consequences of resisting raids, but he does need to report back to his superiors.

After asking whether he can give out the password to the crates Dengar knocks him out with one blow. He places a descrambler on one of the locks.

Hovering out too long attracts too much undue attention. Jyn punches in edit to the descrambler protocol and all the lids slid open with a hiss, very aware that Dengar’s watching her.

The caskets contain nothing but spice, rectangles of Tatooine deserts in miniature. Someone lets out a whoop behind Jyn.

“Well well, thought it would be swords guns,” Dengar kicks at a box, disdainful, creating a small cataclysm within the uncovered dunes.

Running weapons would be too obvious, Jyn thinks, taking a scan of the contents for metal. Nothing.  Jyn looks at the spice again Dengar threatens the rest of the crew from hiding any stash on their person. She’s come across spice before, but never of this quality: the red deepening to purple vibrant under the harsh glare and the grain fine as dust. The smell, too, isn’t overwhelming.

“Yes,” Dengar says thoughtfully. He dabs a finger into a crate and brings up to look at the  powder coating the skin. “Perhaps even unique.”

They turn the ship upside down, but there’s nothing that indicates any contract with the Empire.

“Bring back the cargo,” Dengar orders. “No point wasting all this.”

“This is way too easy,” Jyn mutters to herself when they’re on the way to Tatooine.

Dengar gives her a look. “Believe me, the universe always makes up for it.”

Jyn almost laughs, but settles for glaring. “I know.”

-=-=

But Jabba’s not displeased with the cache of spice. He picks up the sample with relish then calls up the list and makes an exaggerated mark against the one they just raided.

“This is an interesting list,” Jabba says, “and interesting spice if you can get more of it. Make your way down it.”

The second time and ship showed spice. The third is spice again, every time of the same precious purple quality. Every time, Jyn goes and Dengar’s right, the universe makes up for easy pickings. The captains gives up the fight two out of three, but the third is always worse.

But no worse than anything Jyn’s done. All their blasters are set to stun because bounty hunters are in charge and they, apparently, are finicky about killing without payment when anyone they leave alive could be a future bounty.

And given the types that they encounter running spice, Jyn wouldn’t be surprised if Dengar spoke from experience.

Before the ninth run, Jyn meets up with Bohdi again, who starts pacing the moment they locked the door behind them.

“You’re trying to find a needle in a haystack,” he says. “In fact, it’s probably easier to find a needle in a haystack if you’ve a scanner.” They’re in a better room this time. Apparently Jabba splurged on the pilots when they returned. Bohdi, after two months waiting around on an outstation, has decided that the money’s better spent in Tatooine then hoarded in Willix’s account.

It’s a neat profitable loop. Jabba loses nothing and stands only to gain if any of the pilots prove forthcoming with information, like Bohdi.

“What’s a haystack?” Jyn asks, wincing as she sits backward against the pillow and jostled her arm and the tray of food. A second ship appeared just as they were stripping their target for parts. They were too scattered to repel the boarding action and Jyn ended up with bacta patches on her shoulder.

Bohdi frowns, stops his pacing.  “You’re trying to find what’s equivalent of sand mole in a desert. You’ll never find it this way. You’re putting yourself in unnecessary danger and being Jabba’s spice smuggler. ”

“I found you. And you had your face on the empire’s most wanted list and you still joined up again,” Jyn answers, defensive, hurt, and unreasonable because of Bohdi’s right. She has been effectively acting as Jabba’s spice smuggler even if it isn’t her intention. Yet every raid, every half-hearted conversation with Dengar or any of the crew, and every fire-fights only makes her feel that she’s finding herself again through finding the violent Hallick, the cunning Kestrel, and others in the creation of artful commercial agent Jeron Sy, whose purpose is nobler.

Bohdi’s frown deepens. He takes a deep breath, “Jyn,” he says her name carefully, as if she doesn’t remember, “Did you ever ask where Jabba got the list?”

“He said from a client.”

In that same careful slow way, he resumes, “Did you ever consider perhaps he already knows what the Empire’s going to be building. Perhaps they all know. And we’re the only ones in the dark.”

This is too many maybes for Jyn. She’s under no illusion of her value to either Hutt. Gorga wants her to find out what Jabba knows and Jabba want to find out what Gorga knows. In summary, the Hutts haven’t kicked her out into space because they still have things they don’t know. She looks at Bohdi worrying at his lip and suddenly understood. Her pulse quickens. The fear that “You know they’re building something-”

Bohdi nods. “On the outstation, I played sabacc with some of the pilots that you encountered. They mentioned the raids, the humans involved, they mentioned _you,_ if not by name.The ships you found are scout ships, mapping ships. They aren’t suppose to be carrying anything. They are gauging routes of travel. The orders for construction are probably already in place. If it’s the same or similar plans, the only thing that needs changing is the location.”

Jyn shakes her head, almost daring herself to refuse to believe that stealing the plans and destroying the Death Star aren’t enough.

Bohdi laughs, bitter. “Space is vast.”

And once they know for certain what the Empire’s weapon is, everything they’ve done to them-- every accusation, every lie, every false comfort-- has to be forgotten because the Rebel Alliance remain the only people who can take on the Empire.

She shouldn’t feel betrayed. She knows that this is what it has always been. Saw knows it. And yet years later, there’s still no righteousness, just resistance. She’s already spent her hope.

“Jyn,” Bohdi says, voice gone small, dark eyes gleaming oddly, “Everything we did. We thought it’ll be enough.”

But it never has been.

She looks at Bohdi, the distance between them in the small room suddenly as vast as space itself and thinks of the press of another body against hers the last time she thought of hope with joy.

-=-=

When there are just two more ships and times on the list left, Dengar says to her, “I hear you may be starting your own firm once this is over.”

“I don’t know where you heard that and I don’t think _this_ has even started,” Jyn says. “I don’t think you’d like what I do.”

“Let’s say, I have a nose for how these things evolve. My partner and I,” Dengar says, “are always looking for work. We are flexible and we do the things you don’t like. Usually, the more you dislike it, the more capable we are of doing it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“It’s offer,” Dengar says. “I’m Corellian. Us humans got to stick together in the Outer Rim worlds. You are good with weapons and other things. Jabba likes you.”

“Jabba is using me.”

Dengar shrugs. “He is using us all, but at least he pays well. But you, he doesn’t pay you at all.” At her surprised look, he smiles, “Yet you’re coming with us. Either you owe him something or he owes you, both of which seems unlikely as you’re both still alive.”

“Do you do strategic analyses by the numbers?” Jyn bites out, feeling the analyses as a violation of privacy.

“I’m not a mech, if that’s what you’re asking, but I’m not blind. I’ve instincts. You’re a woman with a good appetite for violence and I suspect, other things.”

Jyn snorts, getting more irritated. “And you are one who count survival by the days.”

Alarmingly, that seems to rouse Dengar’s interest, “Is that a threat or a promise?

“It’s a fact of life,” Jyn says. “Who says I’ll be staying in the Outer Rim? Everything here, everything you know, will be a field of flowers if the Empire gets complete control. You know what happened to Alderann. Everything’s on their way to being mechanized: planets and later, singular deaths”

Dengar’s face goes through a variety of transformations through her reply, flushing white and red and finally settles on a sort of mottled pink.

“Larboard!”

Just as Dengar turns to reprimand whoever’s shouting inside the close confines of the ships, he stills. Jyn follows his gaze. Through the viewport, their target is coming into view, the stamp of a mid-Rim construction company emblazoned in bold black across its hull. It’s the thinnest of clues for Jyn but Dengar swears.

“That’s not real,” he says to her, practicality winning over resentment. “It’s a mercenary mark.”

Armed, then, that’s nothing new. Jyn thinks back to what Bohdi says about imperial scouting ships. Whereever they’re, this must be a particularly important route. Or at least, more urgent.

Quietly, Jyn sets her weapons to kill. Dengar notices anyways and gives her a grim smile. “They were friendlier a few years ago but then things happened.”

“Things happened?” Jyn echoes.

“Running weapons is high profit, high risk. Feelings gets hurt even among colleagues. Empire is not welcome here.”

The last bit is petty revenge, but bounty hunters have short attention spans when there are no credits.

The shield is no better than any of the others they’ve disabled, but there are no escape pods either. The breach of the hull sets off the alarms, but no one comes running.

This is strange. The ship seems abandoned. And by the mark, none of them believes that the captain’s so afraid that they’ve holed up in their cabin somewhere.

Jyn makes her way deeper into the ship. There’s no cargo visible. The real cargo may be stashed somewhere else. They split up, silent, sliding across the many corridors like ghosts.

Jyn seldom fought on spaceships before Jabba’s list, but there are enough edges and bulwarks and partitions and doors similar enough to jungles and cities that she soon learned that the only thing she couldn’t rely on was the wind. Most air systems in ships are too advanced for sound and smells to travel differently depending on location. A door can open behind you so quietly with no change in the atmosphere that ambushes are easy. Nonetheless, ships of certain classes tend to be organized the same way, which make it easier to navigate than most places on planet.

When the first blaster fire scorched the wall, she’s already at navigation deck. The comm in her ear tells her that it’s time to destabilize the ship from its course. Dengar’s team’s braced for the rolling motion that’ll rattle out their enemies. “Shake them from their nests,” Dengar tells her gleefully once, the first time he showed her the trick.

The lock’s simple. The door slides open. The navigator seat isn’t empty, but there’s only one person there. A body lies flat by the door, so small that Jyn startles, thinking it a child. But the face is orange and scaly and the hand holds a blaster.

At Jyn’s step, the pilot lifts his head. At first, Jyn only sees the dark eyes haunted and looking up from beneath his lashes as if shy, an impression belied by the firm angle of the jaw and the scratch of beard concealing the soft mouth. Eventually, once the pounding of Jyn’s heart quiets the individual features resolves into a face, a person.

“Jyn,” Cassian says.

Jyn says, stupidly, “Captain.”

The alarms are still blaring. She hears a shout behind her. The Hutts’ crew has seen them. The bounty hunter raises a hand. Bib’s head appeared from a holoscreen as Dengar says, “Tell Jabba we found Sward.”

 -=-=


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue, sortof.

“You know him?”

Dengar points at Cassian.

“Yes,” Jyn answers the same time as Cassian says, “No.”

“Ah, one of those,” Dengar says to his partner and the small crowd that’s gathered at his side. “Cuff’em.”

A brief period of confusion followed, during which Jyn gets cuffed alongside Cassian then the person who cuffed Jyn gets cuffed on the head by Dengar. But when Jyn’s uncuffed, her hand goes to her blaster. 

Dengar tsks. “I doubt you know you him. Not really. You don’t know who he is.” Dengar’s partner has a gun trained on her.

He points at Cassian. “This is Joreth Sward. Jabba’s been after him for months. Years, if rumors are true.”

“High bounty for you then?” Jyn scoffs, anger making the question sound like an insult. 

Dengar smiles at her in perhaps what he thinks is a placating way. Then he solicitously buckles I Cassian into his seat, at the same time ejecting a series of small tools from Cassian’s sleeves and pockets. 

“A good bounty and an investment for his trust in us. Not everyone’s willing to bring Sward in, and not even because he’s dangerous in his own right. Friends and allies all over the place. Even unlikely ones.” He gives a very meaningful look at Jyn then looks at Cassian. “People who should’ve known better than to trust you.”

Cassian doesn’t reply.

Jyn’s a little grateful for that. Relief and anger and longing and surprise has coalesced and settled into a dull irritation, especially since Cassian seems unwilling to look at her. Instead, he’s staring at a spot on his boots as if it’s more interesting. 

“Your thoughts, Sward?” she says, gentler, because it’s still Cassian, alive, despite all else. 

Sward doesn’t reply. Cassian is still silent. Jyn thinks, distractingly, that he looks less friendly than when they first met, but that he may have forgotten her is too bitter to contemplate.

-=-=

Jabba says, “Why don’t you take your jacket off? Stay a while.”

Reluctance in every line of his body, Cassian takes off his jacket.

“Shoes,” Bib adds in a bored voice.

“You get smaller every time I see you,” Jabba comments. “Shirt?” he asks, when Cassian doesn’t move. Jabba makes a gesture. Collared and sprawled on cushions, it’s easy to forget that Twi’leks are a tall species and stronger than most humans. Cassian’s slight beneath his jacket and when the Twi’leks stand, their chains jangling, he does seem small, vulnerable. 

Without jacket, shirt, or shoes, Cassian wouldn’t be able to leave without dying of exposure. He wouldn’t even be able to step outside onto the burning sand without scorching his feet. Ignoring Dengar’s hissed warning and his arm on her elbow, Jyn goes forward. 

But Cassian takes off his shoes, the chains on his wrists knocking against each other, then lifts an eyebrow. “I’ll keep the shirt,” he eyes everyone else in the room, gaze passing Jyn, as if he doesn’t see her, though it pins her where she stands. “And not offend the new company present.” 

“Ah well,” Jabba sighs, waving down his creatures. “I can see hints that you are as smooth as I remember, but I think even your face looks hungry. Don’t they feed you at- ” Jabba drifts to Jyn, “Choam Company, was it?”

“Not for a while,” Cassian answers.

“How can I forget. Grief takes people differently.” Another look at Jyn, who stares at a dark spot in Cassian’s shirt instead of reacting. “Come closer, Sward.” 

Sward, Jyn realises. She laid down her vibroblade at Jabba’s feet and Bib had made a comment about Sward. Sward, not Sword. Dengar, too, talks about Sward’s guns. She thought she misheard. 

“Not eating well at all,” Jabba says from the dais then pokes Cassian on the stomach. Even in the stuffy air of Jabba’s hall, Jyn can tell Cassian’s wince. “You should’ve stayed and would’ve been fed well. Look at me, touch my belly. ”

Cassian turns his body away from Jyn and places his hand on Jabba’s stomach, matter-in-fact.

Jabba makes a sound that seemed disturbingly like giggle. “Aren’t I enormous?”

Cassian actually huffs out a laugh or at least, something like it. Whatever that sounds is, Jyn’s never heard it from him before. “Bigger every time I see you,” she hears Cassian say, watches the way his mouth curls.

Jabba preens, scolds Sward for leaving again, and calls for snacks. It’s small consolation that everyone else around Jyn seems as uncomfortable as her by this exchange. She averts her gaze as Jabba makes speech about loyalty and profits, friendly, even affectionate. Eventually, Jyn go from staring at the floor, to Cassian’s ankles, strong and oddly naked, up the line of his legs, to the tension in his back where the holes in his shirt are visible, to where Cassian’s finely shaped face is now a strange mask of friendliness toward Jabba, and apparently enjoying the same courtesy in return. 

Then Bib sniffs beside Cassian. “You are injured.”

Cassian fell and hit beams in Scarif. The last time Jyn saw him, he’s scarcely been able to walk. It’s been months. Yet, even in the dimness of the hall, the dark spots on Cassian’s shirt seems to have gotten bigger. 

Jabba slants a look toward Jyn. 

“Not us,” Dengar protests.

Jabba takes a deep breath of his pipe, closing his eyes, then pulls Cassian close by the chain between his wrists. “Come here, for a hug, dear Sward.” Cassian stumbles into Jabba just as he breathes out slowly, the blue smoke enveloping him.

Cassian shudders and sways.

This time, a hard pressure in a particular place in the human wrist left Dengar cursing after her as Jyn goes forward just as Jabba pushes Cassian backward. 

Yes, Cassian’s thinner than she last held him in Scarif, a bearable weight and almost an unbearable presence, solid and warm and lips parted as if he would speak to her. Jyn wishes that the world around her disappeared. She brushes a stray piece of hair on his forehead.

“Now the pilot’s gotten stale, she wants him,” Bib says, disdainfully. He bends toward Jabba and whispers something in his ear.

Slowly, Jabba’s giant eyes open. His mouth widens into a grotesque parody of a smile.

“Perhaps I can give him to you,” he says. He gestures. The Twi’lek girls lift Cassian out of Jyn’s arms to to his feet, still swaying from the aftereffect of whatever smoke Jabba breathed into his face. His eyes are dark, pupils enlarged, face flushed as if after a stim shot.

“Bib says I should ask how much you know of him, but I think it’s more important to tell you what you should know. I don’t care about your history with him, presence or absence of it, but he’s valuable to me,” Jabba says. “Sward and I go way back, though he tends to run away; more jumpy than dune rabbit. We’ve known each other for years.” He cast a look that Jyn can only describe as _fondness_ to Cassian’s figure. “We did some good business together. It was a delightful time.”

“He’s in chains,” Jyn points out.

“Well, he isn’t usually, but he came this way this time. I’ve nothing to do with it.”

“Well, if he comes this way. He doesn’t have to stay this way. Are you the master here or should I apply to the one who put him in chains?”

Jabba gestures. “Gorga warned me about you, but you have very little advantage here for your request for Sward, Jeron, except that you retrieved him.”

At the name, Cassian stirs. 

“What do you say, Sward? Fancy being looked after by another human for a while?”

“What if she hurts him?” Dengar mutters, rubbing his wrist.

“Well, what about it? He’s already hurt. We’ll get some bacta. Sward’s a tough one. They all are where he comes from.”

They? Jyn wonders, but Cassian’s chains are gone. 

“Catch up,” Jabba encourages. “Keep each other company.” He pauses a moment. “Stay.”

-=-=

“This is not a medbay,” says the med-droid, surprisingly shiny and sleek and ignorant of its likely stolen state. 

“I’m staying so you don’t kill him,” Jyn repeats. They’re single empty room that looked like a storage room at first glance except for the steel table in the middle and a bacta tank bubbling at the other end. 

The med-droids blinks rapidly at her. “You are not authorized personnel.” It looks around, as if looking for reinforcements, but there’s no one in the room except for Jyn and Cassian, who’s started to breathe heavily. Blood is staining Jyn’s hands.

“I’ll stay until I’m removed,” Jyn insists. 

The med-droid goes back to work on Cassian, scanning and cutting away his shirt to expose bleeding welts and barely healed shiny skin. “Incomplete bacta treatments,” it says, “Internal and surface injuries unstable.”

Jyn suppresses the urge to touch. She doesn’t know those injuries, but the welts are regularly spaced. Someone or something had deliberately hurt Cassian. Healed him, then hurt him. Jyn was not personally familiar with interrogation techniques. Saw’s always had specialists and perhaps out of some residual sense of obligation, had made a point of keeping Jyn out of the way during those sessions. But Jyn was not stupid and their hideouts were not soundproof. 

“Complete the bacta treatment,” the med-droid, sounding self-satisfied. Jyn almost offered to help as the droid began to strip Cassian, but then it tutted at her and asked for her medical credentials. There’s something in the tone that reminded Jyn of K2 and for some reason, Jyn’s hands begin to shake. Rather than prove the droid right, Jyn clenched her fists and stayed away. 

Cassian’s barely conscious by the time he’s submerged. Jyn sat next to him, blaster in her lap, her mind buzzing while the med-droid fusses around her.

After a while, Dengar appears in the doorway. “I need to tell you about Joreth Sward.” He whistles as he sees Cassian suspended in the bacta, not sharing Jyn’s respect for privacy. “You won’t get him out of here without Jabba’s permission.”

“What does Jabba want with him?”

Dengar shrugs. “Catch-up on old times” he says.

“If you’re going to be useless-”

“But mostly I think to get to the bottom of that shipping manifest. I had an interesting conversation with Bib about the blue spice. Apparently it’s Sward’s specialty and fetches a high price in select markets.”

Jyn narrows her eyes. “Why are you telling me?”

“The same reason I haven’t told anyone what you are like with him and that he hasn’t said he recognized you, but Joreth Sward’s an informant. No one knows what side he’s on, so it makes very interesting to Jabba how he got to the way he is and how you know him. I’m interested, too.”

“You mean you want to know who the highest bidder could be.”

“Got it in one.”

“And,” Jyn tils her head. “It means that Jabba hasn’t said he’ll pay you, which makes me suspect that you’re afraid that he won’t, at all.” 

“Especially not after that little display we saw, not exactly the action of a man, or a Hutt, who’ll pay a bounty.” He actually looks a little embarrassed. “It was never an official bounty. So-” Dengar prompts.

He wants Jyn to pay him to get Cassian and herself out of Jabba’s influence. That is to say, since capturing Cassian has resulted in nothing but a slight by the Jabba he wants to slip Cassian away from under Jabba’s nose. In exchange, he’ll keep secret whatever he thinks he saw Jyn with Cassian. Jyn knows by now he’s only aiding their escape. If Jabba doesn’t want them back, he gets paid. And Jabba wants them back through an official bounty call, Dengar gets a chance to capture them both, and be paid double. It’s a good bet, except Jyn has no intention of being found. 

“And how much do you think he’s worth?”

A bluff. Jyn keeps her face impassive. “Not enough to risk being killed,” she says.

“You have hurtful assumptions about me,” Dengar returns, “I know your imperial pilot’s not coming back and I can see an obvious...connection between you and Sward. Call it honor among thieves.”

Jyn calls that honor by a number. Specifically, a number of credits that Dengar hmmed and hummed at. He wants to bargain. 

“Half here,” she says. “Half when we’re out.” Dengar agreed, unclipping something from his belt and feeds an empty credit chip into the reader. Jyn swipes her hand for the signature and is somewhat grateful when Dengar nods that Gorga’s credits had as many layers of encryption as the most paranoid Hutt. The other half won’t be transferred until she’s out of orbit.

“A pleasure,” Dengar says. He points at the tank. “Whenever he’s awake then.”

“Six hours,” Jyn replies and is left alone to worry. She dozed, sleeping cramped on the chair to the rhythmic beeping and bubblings of the tank. She wakes up suddenly to find Dengar in front of her, looking like a man who just enjoyed a very good meal. He probably did. Jyn’s only a little resentful that her credits didn’t buy her dinner. So much for honor among thieves. 

“Desert nights are cold,” Dengar says. “No shoes in the palace. Got him socks though. Now I’m going to clear the way. Don’t look at me like that. They don’t smell!” 

His own socks, probably, Jyn thinks, looking at the darned patches, but then notices the datapad and the map folded between the socks. 

“Where are you taking him? I can’t discharge him without location of discharge.” The medroid asks, administering a shot to Cassian that suddenly made him open his eyes. His pupils are huge. 

“Home,” Jyn returns. 

At the word, Cassian smiles. “Jyn,” he says. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Jyn wants to cry. “Come home with me,” Jyn says to Cassian, ready to help him to stand, but he waves her away. “Bodhi has a ship. We have funds. Let’s go home.”

Cassian shakes his head, as if still clearing his head.

“We can move if you like,” Jyn answers, forcing cheer into her voice. At least his pupils have gone back to normal and he’s standing on his own power. “Somewhere colder. We’ll get jackets made. It’ll be all right. I know you don’t like the cold.” 

Cassian doesn’t reply but follows her without question. Dengar’s instructions hold. There’s the forked passageway that led to the side-hangars used by Jabba’s underlings’ underlings. They were narrow, man-sized trails that took all of Jyn’s concentration to navigate. She’s slightly worried about him. Cassian’s still swaying slightly, but seems to be surefooted even in socks. 

“Fest was a snow planet,” Cassian says suddenly behind her. 

“Fest?”

“I was born there,” Cassian offers. “I threw rocks at tanks. Draven took me in so I can throw myself at them, if necessary.”

“It’s not necessary,” Jyn says, firmly. “Partisans don’t go for suicide missions. There are too few of us.” The passageway widens before her. She pauses, breathes out, “And there’s only one of you.”

She takes Cassian’s hand, closes her hand around his. There’s the transport, as promised. The colors are old and appears rusted, but the engine’s new.

“I can’t leave,” Cassian says behind her. “Go on without me.”

Jyn turns around. It doesn't make sense. There's no one behind them. “I knew that droid was up to no good,” Jyn mutters. “Probably defective to end up on Tattooine. It’s the drugs, Cassian. Look, we’ve a ship parked to get out of atmo. It’ll be fine.”

“Jyn,” Cassian says, “listen to me. I need to stay here.”

Then he collapses forward into Jyn’s arms, out cold. Dengar’s face emerges by the shadow, smiling bearishly down at them. “We have a time window here.”

-=-=


End file.
